Athletics and Football (extract)

xviii INTRODUCTION figure in the University boat orthe eleven. The names of those few who didexcel stand out among their contempo­ raries, and itwas by no means anuncommon experience to find that those who had surpassed in intellectual contests in school and college utterly broke down in their professions in afterlife. I attribute this in no small degree to the fact that for many boys and men there was scarcely any inducement to develop or use their physical strength, nothing whiclhed them to those pur­ suits which, without engrossing the mind too much, de­ velop the body gradually and contemporaneously with mental growth. How many a first class man atOxford, or wrangleror first class classic at Cambridge, couldonly find exercise in the daily and monotonous grind of an hour or an hour and a half's walk ; cricket and boating both taking up too much time, and not unfrequently leading many to expenses whichthey could ill afford ? I maintain thatone great goodwhich has arisen from the stimulusgiven from the years i860 to 1870 to athletic sports isthe facility which those pursuits afford for the development of physical strength, andthe inducement to active exerciseoffered to men who, either from want of inclination or want of means, would otherwise never have taken any. I have known intimately a great many reading men,who have toldme how deeply they regretted that there was nothing of the kind in their time, and many others have assured me of the advantages which they have derivedfrom the interest which these pursuits have given to them, and the inducementto take exercises which otherwise theywould have wholly neglected. It